


it picks you up and turns you around

by Sandbirde



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Existentialism, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18455297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandbirde/pseuds/Sandbirde
Summary: John and Casey hang out on LOWAS





	it picks you up and turns you around

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I know it's been a while since I posted something, but I promise I'm not dead! I've just...had a lot of personal stuff going on, and finishing Fresh Snow, specifically, has been pretty low priority. That being said, there was no way I could let Homestuck's 10th anniversary pass without creating something, and so I wrote two pieces about our favorite boy for Windyzine, a John Egbert fanzine! Check out the full thing here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wno8h6vkiii52vy/Windyzine-%20A%20John%20Egbert%20Fanzine.pdf?dl=0
> 
> This second piece is a lot lighter/fluffier, and a bit shorter. It's just a snapshot of John and Casey hanging out on LOWAS. The title is a line from A Lack of Color by Death Cab For Cutie. Enjoy!

"You are literally the cutest thing ever."

John lay on his stomach, legs kicking, chin perched in his hands, as Casey blew another whimsical bubble. His eyes sparkled in the way they only could when a man looked at his unofficially adopted daughter. The light of the land beneath and around them embraced them warmly, and the breeze kissed his cheek, ruffling his hair affectionately before drifting lazily off to the next field over.

He blinked like a cat to its human - slow, deliberate, his eyelids beating to the pulse of the rocks on either side of him. Casey was unfazed, rolling onto her back carelessly as she flapped her jaws in contentment. John laughed, the notes dancing into the wind. He then copied Casey, rolling onto his back and grinning widely at her.

He'd heard once that humans actually saw everything upside down, and their brains just turned things right side up for them. It sounded silly, but he had a hard time disbelieving anything at the moment. He wondered idly how Casey saw the world. He didn't know anything about salamander vision; was she colorblind? If so, what type? Did  _ she  _ see everything upside down?

"Y'know, sometimes I really wish we could talk to each other."

He laughed again, turning back over onto his stomach. Casey rolled onto her stomach, her head at an impossible angle as she stared at him, and he laughed harder, only to completely lose his shit when she hopped back up onto her feet, flapping her jaws in delight and letting bubbles loose with wild abandon. His chest was wind and starlight; his laughter lifted the fireflies to a frenzied dance. He cackled for a solid minute or two before eventually catching his breath, the air lovingly caressing his lungs.

"Well, you seem to like when I laugh. That's a start, right?"

Casey stared as always, but this time John felt a wordless exchange, something indescribable that traced across his back and brought him peace. He felt his worries like folded wings, massive and heavy and pathetically limp; but as he gazed into deep brown salamander eyes, they were torn, feather by feather, and lifted into the wind, not to be seen for a long, long while. Ironically, he felt like he could break from the ground and float away at any moment along with them.

He broke eye contact, staring in awe at the ever-tempestuous sky, then to the horizon, just as restless, just as alive. The whole planet felt like it was waiting for something, but also like it could wait forever. John couldn't explain the part of him that stirred just looking at it; he just...knew. It was a feeling he hadn't known since he'd looked up to a different sky, one that might not even exist anymore(?), to see the apocalypse raining fire down on the only city he'd ever known. Here - despite what he had lost, what he still couldn't quite comprehend was actually gone - his heart beat in time with firefly wings, and his blood was his breath. Here, at least for now, was where he belonged.

He looked back to Casey, wondering if maybe, in some special place in her tiny lizard heart, she felt it too.

Casey blew another bubble.

John smiled.


End file.
